Lili Williams

Name: Lili Williams (birth name Liling Wan)

Gender: Female

Age: 16

Grade: 11th Grade (Junior)

School: Cochise High School

Hobbies and Interests: Obscure music, flute, kite-flying, yoga, world history.

Appearance: Lili Williams is of Chinese Descent, ethnically linked with the Han Chinese. She is 5'5" and weighs around 104 pounds, with a BMI of 17. This places Lili in the BMI Range of Underweight. She has a more slim build than most of her peers. Lili has hazel brown colored eyes, and wears wire frame glasses due to nearsightedness in her left eye.

Her skin is colored a light shade of tan. Between her right cheekbone and her nose, Lili has several freckles, a feature that is not mirrored on her left side of her face. Her face has a round shape to it, with pronounced cheekbones. She is missing one of her canine teeth.

She is well groomed, and showers daily. She dresses in unassuming hooded sweatshirts and jeans on most days, and in dresses on formal occasions. She has dark circles beneath her eyes, a trait she inherits from her mother.

Her hair is black, and is worn in a bobbed style that cuts off at the base of the chin. Her bangs are cut straight over her forehead.

On the day of the kidnapping, Lili was wearing a blue sweater and black jeans. Underneath her sweater she wears a red Frank Zappa T-Shirt. For footwear, she wears blue Chuck Taylor sneakers that she bought the previous summer. Her glasses are attached to her head with a sports strap, a precaution she has taken since her early schooling.

Biography: Liling Wan was born in Beijing, China to a businessman and a nursing assistant, and is an only child. Her mother, though not home very often, would read to Liling before bed, telling her stories about her ancestors and other bedtime fairly tales. After a market crash in China, her father grew paranoid and made the decision to move the family to the United States. However, the family did not realize that the situation in the United States was also undesirable until it was too late to move back. After several months of moving from city to city trying to find a steady place to settle, the family wound up in Kingman, Arizona, where they would stay while searching for jobs in nearby cities. Eventually, Liling's mother developed an affinity for the small town, and the family decided to stay, adopting anglicized names to fit in with the town's populace better. From this point forward, Liling Wan was now Lili Williams.

In her early grade school years, Lili developed a shy and weak personality and made very few friends, instead choosing to read and pursue a more academic lifestyle. The other children in class took note of this, and began to ask her to come out of her shell and participate in their playground games more often, a request she fervently denied. Now viewed as an outsider, her classmates began to shun her socially and bully her physically, intervening in her studies and her alone time by taking away her books, eye-glasses and other possessions, to the point where Lili began to develop a reflexive trait common in those who suffer abuse, as well as a nervous tick and restless leg syndrome. Because her glasses were a semi-frequent target, she wears a sports strap on her glasses should she ever be put in a situation where she is injured again. This was the start of Lili's fallout with the academic lifestyle, where she began to associate studying and playing along with the school system as a negative choice. These reflexes persist to the day of the kidnapping.

Despite their misguided attempts to bring Lili out of her shell, all their bullying led to Lili spending more and more time alone. Around this time, she fell out with math and science classes, deeming them useless after her teachers and parents failed to convince her that they would be very useful in the real world. However, she remained in line with English and history, as well as the arts, as she favored these subjects and found them more useful in her day to day life. She began to spend more time alone outside as well, loitering in the park and on her front porch, where she would often stare into the sky. Her mother took note of this, and convinced her father to buy her a kite as a means of passing the time. Lili and her father began to fly kites together, one of the only times they would be able to spend time together in the coming years.

In the fourth grade, her father's job fell through, and for a time Lili's family was poor. At first, Lili was not sure what to make of this change, as she had never thought about being poor as a possibility: her father's job had been stable up to this point. Though her mother was working full-time at the hospital as a nursing assistant, her relatively low paying position made a meager amount of money that was only barely enough to keep them afloat. Over time, however, she began to grow angry at her father for losing his job and blamed him for the change. During a stretch of time that lasted from fourth grade to sixth grade, Lili made a decision to spend less time flying kites and more time at the library as an attempt to get away from her father, though the two would still find time every once in a while. At the library, she quickly developed an affinity for history due to her fascination with storytelling. It quickly became her favorite subject, an outcome reflected in her grades. Lili's experience being poor was not easy for her to cope with, and during this period of time she spent less and less time at home in an effort to distance herself from the reality of the situation. Her nervous ticks grew worse, and she became more emotionally unstable.

Lili gained a reputation among her classmates for being reclusive and oddly intelligent, a judgement that, if tested, would prove false; Lili was useless in any subject except for English and history. Despite this, she was included in academic peer groups and made friends with several more studious children. She did not mind her academically minded schoolmates, and found their company comforting, as they were less likely to judge her lonesome habits. This had the side effect of exposing her to more schoolwork and higher expectations from her teachers. Around this time, she began to take interest in playing the flute after a suggestion from her mother in an effort to get Lili to make more friends, as well as seeing the friends she did have begin to take lessons and join in the school band.

Lili has played the flute since seventh grade. She possesses above average skill in playing the flute, and attends lessons outside of school to further her ability. She is classically trained in music, but rejects her more traditional training and instead spends time listening to more obscure artists, such as The Residents and Captain Beefheart. Her taste in music alienates herself further from her classmates, as she takes the art form very seriously while she views the rest of her classmates as taking value away from her passion by giving in to corporate interests. In her mind, mainstream music is diluted and poisonous, relying on primal patterns and basic rhythms to draw in the masses. While she finds the music she listens to enlightening and engaging, other students hear it as harsh noise and dismiss it as odd.

In seventh grade, her father finally found a steady job in a neighboring city. This development subsequently lead to him and Lili barely ever seeing each other, and because of this Lili's strained relationship with her father grew even worse and more unbalanced. One symptom of this change was the cessation of Lili and her father's kite-flying sessions for good, though Lili kept up the hobby out of habit and an attempt to keep a reminder of when times were simpler between her and her father. Lili's mother has had a steady job as a nursing assistant at the city hospital since the family moved to Kingman, and as such spends more time with Lili than her father. Lili is very close to her mother and trusts her with many of her thoughts and feelings.

At the start of high school, Lili started to pay less attention to her grades, in part because it was getting harder for her to care for what she deemed unnecessary, and in part because she subconsciously wanted to defy her absent father out of spite. Her already low grades in math and science got even lower, and her English grade dropped to a C average. This worried her mother, who attempted to get her father to intervene, though he was too busy to do anything about it. However, Lili's history grade was able to remain at a high level due to her fascination with the subject.

In yet another effort to get Lili to associate more with her peers, and to calm down Lili's growing nervousness, her mother signed her up for yoga classes. At first, Lili was against the idea, participating infrequently during her classes. Over time, she made friends with her fellow classmates and became more comfortable in social situations. While not popular by any means, Lili is, at the very least, respected by the majority of her classmates.

In tenth grade, her grades stayed on their trend downwards and continued to get worse and worse. Increased input from her teachers and parents only led to Lili being less and less interested in her schoolwork. Finally, her parents made the decision to send her to summer school to try and get her grades back up. During this time, she became acquainted with students who were involved in more criminal activity and less than desirable behavior. Because of her hanging around these students, she was exposed to more substances, such as alcohol and illegal drugs. The only substance that caught her eye was nicotine in the form of cigarettes, as she associated the drug with the musicians she listened to. She persuaded another student at summer school to let her try a cigarette once after school, and was instantly hooked on the calming feeling it brought to her while she was smoking. She keeps this addiction going by socializing with other classmates and seniors who are old enough to smoke. She keeps this addiction hidden from her parents as best she can, though it has impaired her ability to play the flute with steady breath control.

Lili's current personality is, on the surface, difficult for her peers and teachers to categorize. On one hand, she is active in perusing her interests in music and history. She is friendly when approached by most students, and keeps several friendships going from her music classes and her middle school years. However, Lili makes little effort to approach other teenagers, and prefers to be left alone. Outwardly, Lili is quiet and keeps to herself until spoken to by a friend or about a subject she cares about, upon which she becomes more comfortable and positive. She prefers not to talk about subjects she views as negative, such as math and science, and does what she can to stay away from talking about her grades with her peers. In addition, she looks down on people interested in more mainstream and/or vain hobbies, seeing them as more materialistic and not worth her time. Her close friends know her as a good natured person who just takes a bit of work to warm up to, and as a loyal friend whenever they go through times of stress. Overall, Lili keeps to herself, a move which can appear hostile, but when broached with a topic she cares for becomes more comfortable and happy.

After high school, Lili does not have any plans to go to college. She looks instead to find a job in Kingman at the library until she has enough money to begin to travel across the country. Part of the reason for these ambitions is to get retribution against and sever ties with her father by deviating from his path, an effort she hopes will show him that she can go her own way in life and turn out different from him while simultaneously making sure she does not have to see him again. Her mother wants her to join her in being a nurse at the hospital, but Lili exhibits no interest in medicine whatsoever.

Advantages: Lili's musical ability could prove useful in allying with other members of the school Concert Band and fellow musicians, as well as giving her better hand-eye coordination. Her reflexes from her early childhood could lead to heightened awareness in the game and the ability to flee from situations before they turn into bigger conflicts. Her practice with yoga has given her a centering calm that she can rely on in times of stress. It has also given her better control over her body and flexibility. Lili may not be entirely book smart, but she is very analytical from her history studies.

Disadvantages: Long periods of withdrawal from smoking will lead to physical symptoms and sickness in Lili that might serve to cause stress. She is not particularly strong physically, and is unlikely to be able to lift heavy weapons. Her anxiety and nervousness will make her more prone to nervous breakdowns on the island and leave her in an overall more fragile mental state. Her twitches and restless leg could make it harder for Lili to remain hidden in a situations that call for stealthy movement and hiding.

Designated Number: Female student no. 051

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Designated Weapon: Nightstick

Conclusion: You're a flutist, and you took up smoking? Josie and I are BOTH calling you idiots. Have fun without a single pack of smokes on the island. I mean, don't you know those things will kill y- ... Oh. Never mind. - Dennis Lourvey

'The above biography is as written by CrossbowPig. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: CrossbowPig

Kills: 

Killed By: Suicide via gunshot

Collected Weapons: Nightstick (assigned weapon), toy lightsaber (from Alan Banks), Ithaca 37 (from Kiziah Saraki), Sporting Purpose Automatic Shotgun (from Alessio Rigano)

Allies: Maxim Kehlenbrink, Benjamin Lichter, Darius Van Dyke, Kiziah Saraki, Ben Fields, Penelope Fitzgerald, Raina Rose, Alessio Rigano

Enemies: Leslie Price, Alessio Rigano

Mid-game Evaluation: Lili ascended the bell tower and found Astrid Tate, who startled Lili with her gun but allowed her the opportunity to sit and rest. They briefly discussed their plans, but neither girl was intent on an alliance. Lili departed while she mused on shelter and the days to come, electing to abstractly call the island  'Spiderland within her own thoughts, after an album from the 80s. She tried to move away from the asylum building but was stopped by Kaitlyn Greene trying to exact a toll from her on the connecting bridge. Alan Banks and Scout Pfeiffer also showed. Lili ultimately walked away with Alan's toy lightsaber weapon and roughly zero net exchange of protein bars and bread loaves. She also found and took the shoes left behind by Jennifer Su after her successful suicide.

She encountered Lily Caldwell afterwards in the shack of the radio tower. Their conversation was terse and awkward, and Lily wasn't impressed by Lili's perceived lack of practicality. Lili left for the warehouse, unsettled by Lily's various assertions but with plenty of food for thought. When she got there she ultimately elected to not actually go inside, and also resolved to not let herself overthink the situation.

Lili went to the nearby staff A dormitories, and sneaked around briefly before finding a friend in Benjamin Lichter, who introduced her to Maxim Kehlenbrink. They discussed what they had found out from their other encounters so far, and they agreed to keep watch for one another in turns so they could all get some sleep. She was the first to find a bed and sleep. She ultimately didn't wake until morning and she suffered from nightmares while she slept. When announcements began she belatedly realized the shoes she'd found yesterday belonged to Jennifer, and in a panic she ran off, out of the dorm and away from her allies. She returned to the bridge where she'd found the shoes and contemplated on what she knew of Jennifer. She promised Jennifer's death wouldn't be forgotten, and then threw her shoes into the water, exchanging them for Jennifer's.

She found the group therapy room and meditated on the corpse of Jasmine King, contemplating the nature of a suicide and death in general and trying to desensitize herself to those ideas. She then began searching the suitcases in the room for supplies. She was found by Darius Van Dyke, who allowed her the chance to confirm she was friendly and not responsible for Jasmine's death. Darius decided he needed her help moving Jasmine's corpse, somewhere he didn't want to disclose. She mused on it, recalling her Spiderland narrative and her earlier encounters with Alan, and she agreed to aid him.

While crossing the bridge with the corpse Lili spotted Natalie Winters across the way. Lili was inclined to avoid her, but Darius' presence and exhaustion encouraged her to instead declare their presence. Natalie asked for an alliance as she was quickly convinced that neither Darius nor Lili were trouble, even as she noticed the corpse. Lili recommended they bring Jasmine's body to the pub and the others agreed. They began to carry the corpse once more, Lili glad for the relatively quick resolution. She didn't notice that she'd lost her glasses, which she'd taken off while carrying the body, nor did she notice that they were being stalked by Leslie Price.

Though Darius was a less than friendly person Lili saw the carrying of the corpse through, all the way to the staff library. She found some capacity to find humor in the situation, even. But Leslie finally attacked, and they were forced to abort the current plan. Leslie lunged, missing Darius completely and winding Lili with a punch to the ribs. Lili was able to recover while Leslie stumbled about from the momentum of her assault, and she realized Darius was fleeing, abandoning her. She ran after him, through a rainy night, paranoid to be left alone.

She found him at the dawn of Day 4, in the warehouse. He definitively felt no guilt or remorse for what he'd done, her criticism was initially understated and she focused on returning to the library to find the supplies they'd abandoned. Darius refused to go and had developed an obsession with getting cigarettes and experimenting with the collar of the corpse in the room, Cristo Morales. Lili grew increasingly exasperated, but further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Raina Rose and Johnny McKay, the former immediately drew Darius' ire. Raina tried to dismiss Darius, he continued to belittle her, and an annoyed Lili finally lost whatever faith she had left in Darius and tried to pull Raina into the equation. Darius stormed off, for which Lili was glad, however she was still willing to wish all of them the best even as she reconsidered a temporary alliance with Raina and took off to retrieve her stuff.

Lili found Kiziah Saraki, Clarice Halwood, and Bart Cappotelli in the library when she finally managed to return after a night and morning of being alone and having to reflect on Darius having died, in brief. They seemed friendly, and Lili did her awkward best to negotiate for the return of her supplies when Kizi, 'Kissy', brought it up. She was welcomed into the library and enjoyed a brief reprieve with Kiziah and Bart until a fire that Clarice set elsewhere in the library forced them to flee as the building burned. Lili and Kizi stuck together and fled to the south, coming to a rest on the slopes where Kiziah bemoaned the fact that everyone was indeed likely to die here. Lili awkwardly tried to cheer her up, wtih some success, and stated that she was still willing to try for a rescue. She and Kiziah set off together again after a while, in search of Bart and Clarice.

They took shelter in the Staff B dorms in the evening of Day 5, and silently ate through the announcements of Day 6, Kizi only chipping in to affirm that Clarice and Bart had lived. They were found by Ben Fields, Penelope Fitzgerald, and Raina Rose, all familiar faces Lili was enthused to see, she took over the conversation from a more reserved Kizi with flourish. They went back and forth a bit on catching each other up, then Lili briefed them on Kizi's plan, which in turned prompted Penelope to share her own due to similarity, her's on the other hand involved a group death to defy the terrorists if need be. Lili minced no words, she would happily go along with that plan, and Kizi also proved to be in the same boat. Indeed all of them had found common ground, a purpose and a plan that they began to hash out: hide in the bell tower and gather people to them. Despite some sour notes played by Penelope and Ben the pervasive mood was positive, when they rested they did so as a group, Lili determined to use her quirkiness to her advantage, for the greater good, for a change.

They would split into smaller groups and agree to meet later, Kizi and Lili went to the art therapy room to gather supplies, which Kizi searched for while Lili kept watch outside and mused over a concrete plan of action going forward, the people she wanted to meet and the things she needed to say.

Come Day 7 the group had yet to reunite, but the two of them remained optimistic and camped in the cafeteria to start producing the posters they'd need to get their peers to the sanctuary. As they discussed the posters the question of 'then what' became one of Kizi's uncertainties, Lili unhesitatingly responded with the idea of a party, a more free expression of themselves that could also passively segue into Penelope's plan if need be. Kizi was more restrained, which also curbed Lili's enthusiasm, the two of them hoped for the best but realistically could not expect it. They started to move the conversation to less dour waters, Lili would end up reluctantly explaining Spiderland after letting it slip, and that conversation then turned to a happier and more innocent one about music. Lili produced more oddball ideas, like gathering the island musicians to produce music together. They then found the list of names carved into the cafeteria table earlier, by Fiyori Senay and Georgia Lee Day. Some time passed, they had fun, created several posters with varying irreverent jokes on them, and added their names to the table, along with those of their allies. They were promptly interrupted by the intercession of Alessio Rigano, who opened fire on them the moment he entered. Kizi was hit.

Lili ran to Kizi's side, she was severely injured and already weak. Lili suppressed the sudden furious urge to make Al hurt, focusing on somehow trying to save Kizi. Al lingered, he'd seen the posters and began to berate the girls for what he considered a stupid idea that would get them all killed. He explained people needed to be killing for someone to go home, that they should be grateful for killers like him. Kizi and Lili remained insistent, pointing out that they had a plan, and that his own plan only inflicted the very suffering he was trying to avoid. They mentioned they had more allies, and Al's stance began to soften, as he began to see the beauty of their vision. Al wanted to join them, and Lili was personally dead set against that idea, against allowing Kizi's own killer to supplant her. She practically understood it was never happening, but the dying Kizi accepted Al, and Lili decided she would too. She brought Kizi outside when she requested to die there, she offered an odd eulogy to the dead body and took Kizi's necklace, like she had Jennifer's shoes, promising Kizi she'd also make it off the island somehow. She returned to Al after, murmuring things to herself while she tried to engage him in conversation.

Lili was still downcast when Raina, Penelope, and Johnny McKay arrived the next morning, though she did her best to explain the situation and vouch for Alessio to them. They were interrupted by the announcement, which didn't mention Kizi's death but did note that Ben had died the previous day, and Alessio had killed someone else. Penelope was distraught, and Raina quickly shot down the idea of allowing Al into their group and was backed up by Johnny. Though Penelope argued for him, Al chose to leave, and Lili, seeing Kiziah's dream collapse in front of her, opted to abandon the group as well and follow Al. She took his and Kiziah's guns with her with the intent of disposing of them.

Post-Game Evaluation: 

Memorable Quotes: ''"Spot the rot, oh spot the rot, / Oh spot the rot we say. / Spot the rot they tell the tot / while feeding him some say. / To show, / or be shown, / is a question, / never known, / not even by many to exist." ''-- The song Lili often hums parts of.

"... you're going to get off this fucking island." -- Her promise to the then long deceased Jennifer, when Lili throws her shoes to the water under the bridge.

"I haven't had anything to eat or drink in a day, so, uhm, sorry if I'm a bit kooky." -- Something of an understatement.

"Breathing (...) And happily, too." -- When Penelope initially asks her what she's been up to.

"I call this place Spiderland, (...) In my head. I hated thinking the island this and the island that. Makes me feel stupid saying it now, but, hey, it's something, that I did, to rationalize this place with myself, I guess, or something, I dunno." -- Lili's rationale for her pet name of the island.

"If there can't be happy experiences on this island, then I must have found a way out of here." -- Lili defending the friends and memories she's made on island to Al, who is trying to refute her and Kizi's plans.

Threads
Below is a list of threads containing Lili, in chronological order.

The Past:
 * Twin Infinitives

V6 Pregame:
 * In C.

V6:
 * New Destiny
 * Never Known Questions
 * Heel-and-Toe
 * Consuelo's Departure
 * Prince of Nothing
 * Song For A Warrior
 * Breadcrumb Trail
 * My Human Gets Me Blues
 * God in Three Persons
 * ONE MILLION TROOPS
 * Demons Dance Alone
 * Death Is The Only Freedom...
 * Everything's In Solitude Except Character
 * Drawn To The Blood
 * Ready For The House
 * Minus Something
 * The Making of a Soul
 * Ship's A Goin Down

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Lili Williams. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''